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Topic: Reaching a Milestone (Read 982 times)

I know this is not truly concours-relevant, but the data may be of interest to the forum.

My harness refurbishment business just reached a major milestone: 500 underdash harnesses have been refurbished and sold to customers. When I started out in March, 2008, I thought that there might be sufficient need to make this a hobby business, defined by the IRS as having no consecutive years of making a profit. As of 2011, I had to register as a business, as the demand for these services was greater than I originally thought!

I started out thinking that the distribution of harnesses by production year would largely reflect two factors: how many Mustangs were built and the cost of reproduction harnesses. Mustang productions peaked in 65/66, declining all the way through 73. Reproduction harnesses start out at ~$500 for the earliest years, growing to ~$1000 for 1970. No reproductions are available for 71-73. I expected a reasonably flat distribution from 65through 70, with a bit higher demand for the later years. What actually happened was much different:The biggest surprise is that 1969 dominates all other years, accounting for 26% of all of my work. The next highest year is 66, 67, and 70, each running about 13%. 1968 accounts for about 10%. I think this data is telling me that 1969 is by far the most popular year Mustang, and that the 71-73 demand is much lower than other years. We’ll see if this changes over the next few years.

Thanks for sharing always interesting when you try and figure out what will be more in need only to realize its not always the rarest or what you might assume would be more popular. Some times you guess correctly other times you don't